Before testing the theoretical expectations raised in the previous section, I dis-cuss a number of critical issues in regard to my analytical framework.
The first point is that, based on the insights of the VoC approach, it is as-sumed that the global market for higher education and the structural incentives and constraints therein allow for diversification, i.e. for the pursuance of a range of different approaches to internationalisation. The international higher education arena is complex in terms of national educational conventions, na-tional cultures, finance and politics, as well as labour markets and legal pre-scriptions, amongst other things. Therefore, “Inevitably, an institution will rec-oncile itself to the fact that it will have to segment its international arena or market and focus on particular opportunities” (Davies, 1995: 13). This also sug-gests that there is no one best practice in the global market for higher education but possibly a number of good practices, and, consequently, that existing differ-ences in the internationalisation of universities most likely are not merely the result of ignorance of ‘one-best way’. Rather, the scope of the global market for higher education is such that there is room for specialisation into a particular path of internationalisation.
Another aspect is that there are a number of (complementary) explanations for the existence of national patterns in the internationalisation of universities, not all of which relate to the institutional configurations of national institutional
far beyond the statement that ‘history matters’. It basically describes a dynamic process in-volving positive feedback and increasing returns (Pierson, 2004: 20). Self-reinforcing mechanisms imply that the possibility of another step down the same path increases with each move down the path. In this way, once-possible outcomes become more difficult to reach over time. Hence, it can even be rational to stick to a sub-optimal path if the effi-ciency losses are not expected to be higher than the creation of a new institution (cf. Scher-rer, 2001: 5). This kind of lock-in can also be understood as monopolization despite multi-ple possible equilibria, whereby early events can have a significant long-term impact (even if they seemed small initially). Arthur established the following characteristics for path de-pendence: (1) large set-up costs that result in lower costs per unit as output increases; (2) learning effects that lead to increased know-how and routine, and (3) positive network ex-ternalities that refer to coordination effects as well as adaptive expectations and imply in-creasing utility as the number of incidences increases (Arthur, 1994, cf. Leipold, 1996: 97).
North (1990) then extended Arthur’s conception of path dependence, initially predicated on technological development, to the study of institutional development.
frameworks on which this discussion paper focuses. For instance, one might argue that one of the reasons why British universities can successfully pursue a more commercial approach to internationalisation is that they offer a higher-quality educational service for which students are willing to pay. Also, to some extent, the ties remaining from the British Empire play in favour of the ap-proach that British universities have towards internationalisation.38 Another explanatory factor is the comparative advantage UK universities derive from English being the lingua franca in the world of academia.39 The potential influ-ence of alternative explanatory factors such as these is not denied. I do not ar-gue that the role institutional complementarities and modes of coordination play in the context of the internationalization of universities is exclusive, but rather that they have a most significant impact.
38 Britain already was engaged in the internationalisation of higher education in the nine-teenth and first half of the twentieth century. At that time, internationalisation was linked to the country’s imperial mission (Coate and Williams, 2004: 115). Today, British universi-ties still profit from historical universi-ties that remain from this time. As the Head of Admissions of UEA admits, it often has played in his favour that their business partners in the former British colonies have a mind-set along the lines of “at least we know the Brits” (Head of Admissions UEA, Norwich, 16.11.2007 [see chapter 5 for methodology of interviews]). At the same time, there are a number of aspects questioning that colonial ties are the most relevant. For example, some countries that never had colonies (e.g. Canada, a former col-ony itself) are strong competitors to UK universities, while some other countries that had colonies (e.g. France) are not. Another issue is that student mobility to Germany also has a long history (Kontigiannopoulou-Polydorides et al., 2004: 260), and that Germany also profits from regional links, especially to countries in Central and Eastern Europe (ibid:
254). Export of higher education services into these countries is rapidly expanding, whereby German universities are considered serious competitors by British universities.
(Head of Admissions of UEA, Norwich, 16.11.2007). Indeed, in the case of German univer-sities the top sending countries are Bulgaria (5.1%), Poland (5.0%), and the Russian Federa-tion (4.0%), right after China (10.5%) (IIE, 2008).
39 A competitive advantage of the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand clearly is English being the lingua franca for academia as well as in the world of business (c.f. e.g.
Hughes, 2008). However, while the language factor increases the attractiveness of these countries as a destination for students and researchers, it at the same time hinders outward mobility (Hahn, 2004b: 70). The lack of knowledge on the part of English native speakers of languages other than their mother tongue “… places a barrier against the internationalisa-tion of educainternationalisa-tion” (De Wit and Callan, 1995: 71). Beyond that, English as lingua franca is no “insurmountable obstacle” for universities from non-English speaking countries (Head of the Department for Internationalisation, International Relations and Public Relations at University of Kassel, Kassel, 24.01.2008 [see chapter 5 for methodology of interviews]). For example, as English is increasingly used by academics, it becomes more and more common to offer English-taught programmes at German universities. Moreover, the language factor also plays in favour of German universities. First of all, German is spoken by approxi-mately 20 million native-speakers outside Germany (De Blij and Downs, 2006). Secondly, while estimates about the total number of non-native speakers of German vary signifi-cantly, it is notable that around 16.7 million people worldwide are currently learning Ger-man (StADaf, 2006: 5).
A last point discussed in this context is that the internationalisation of Ger-man universities is at least partly driven by the diffusion of the strategies of the first movers in the global market for higher education. To a certain extent, a strategy for German universities might simply be to imitate the British first-mover strategies. This could be considered a case of institutional isomorphism through mimesis, facilitated by the uncertainties in a dynamically evolving global market for higher education (cf. DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). However, given the premises of the adopted analytical framework, imitation alone would be suboptimal for German universities. If German universities were to follow the internationalisation paths of British universities all the way, they would fail to optimise on the institutional complementarities that the national institutional environment provides in regard to their internationalisation.